Abandoned sequels are surprisingly common in literature. It's very often the case that an author will get tens or even hundreds of thousands of words into a follow-up to one of their past works before realising that their planned outline isn't working, that what they've written isn't actually going anywhere, and that there's no plausible way to get from where they are to where a satisfying resolution would need to be β and so the manuscript languishes, unfinished and unreleased, in some random closet or archival storage medium for decades, possibly to be discovered and published after their death by enterprising heirs.
Imagine, then, how it might play out if an author found themselves in this position partway through the publication of a serialised work, with the bulk of the material already in the reading audience's hands β knowing that letting it drop without ceremony, as one would an unserialised work that's become impossible to continue, would simply result in being hounded for the remainder of one's natural life by ex-readers convinced that it's secretly just "on hiatus".
I'm bringing this up today for no reason.
